Jim Stanton, age 13, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, for his question:
What makes gunpowder explode?
Gunpowder, we are told, was invented centuries ago by the Chinese. They used it to make fireworks to greet the.hTew Year. It is too bad things did not remain at this happy level. But the invention of gunpowder led to the invention of cannons bullet, shot and shell, dynamite, T.N.T. and all sorts of other explosives. Modern explosives have come a long way from the harmless Chinese fireworks display.
True, explosives do have their peaceful uses. They are used for blasting in mining and construction work. But, on the destructive side, modern warfare would be a rather tame business with bows and arrows without explosives. And the old time gunpowder may still be dangerous when used in fireworks. Every year some young person gets scarred tend maybe badly burned around the fourth of July. Most places. now have. anti‑fireworks, laws to save as many young peoples as possible from being hurt by gunpowder.
Explosives may be mild or powerful. But they all work on the same principle. The; explosion comes with great suddenness. This is what makes: for danger. Chances are a young fellow gets burned with fireworks because he was not prepared for the sudden explosion.
In an explosion, a small amount if material is changed into a vast amount of hot gasses. The seething gases need more room and they need it in a hurry. Anything in their path is shoved out of the way. Heavy objects explode, or are pushed out, in all directions. In a mine, dynamite is buried deep in a rock and exploded from a distance. The explosion takes less than a second.
The solid sticks of dynamite becomes a mass of expanding gas. The force of the gasses blast out and scatter the rock. Explosive materials may be solids, liquids or even gases. Gunpowder is either granulated powder or solidly packed grains. Some explosive materials may be set off by a thump or a shock. Some are lazy and need a small explosive a small explosion from another explosive material to sot them off. Some need a fuse or a spark. We set off our gunpowder firecrackers usually with a match or piece of punk. The spark sets off a sudden chemical reaction in the gunpowder. This chemical reaction is not a fire and it does not use oxygen. It converts the small quantity of gunpowder into a mass of hot gases. In a rocket type firework the gases escape through a funnel, pushing a cascade of merry sparks up into the sky.
The recipe for gunpowder is very simple. It is composed of three common., everyday chemicals. In olden days the proportion of the chemicals was haphazard. In the Age of Science the correct proportions were figured out with atomic weights. A certain number of atoms of each kind are necessary for the explosion to act. In the modern recipe, there is dust enough and not too much of each chemical.